Pokemon Showdown seems like something Nintendo would strike down with the force of a thousand suns. Nintendo has always been against emulators, and this is very similar to an emulator. Not only that, but it probably takes away a lot of players from the Pokemon games. And yet, it has been up for over 12 years without any issue. Is this because Nintendo does not want to chase away its competitive player base? Is it because it acts as free advertisement for the Pokemon games? Is it because they don't want the backlash shutting it down would cause? Or is Nintendo just unaware of the existence of Pokemon Showdown, and it is only a matter of time before they discover it and shut it down?
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Is Pokemon Showdown in danger?
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This doesn't have a place in the Orange Islands subforum, nor is it more than a simple question and as such should go in the appropriate thread.
Pokémon is owned by Nintendo, Game Freak, and TPCi, so Nintendo itself can't just try and shut down Showdown!. There are a variety of reasons why any of the companies are fine with Pokémon Showdown! existing (notably that VGC's entire competitive meta is formed on Showdown!, because in-game battles suck). Probably the primary reason that I can think of is that there are a sizeable number of people who would have aged out of the Pokémon games but didn't thanks to Showdown!. Adult playerbases are more profitable than child playerbases are, because adults can buy things for themselves and children can't.
Showdown! has communicated directly with the institutions that own Pokémon, and have even been granted permission by them to use the battle music that Showdown! uses. They're very aware of us, and they like us.
thank you, this is vrey reasuring. however, while nintendo does not own pokemon, they own gamefreak. i feal like this is sitill a discusion worth having, so i will move this somewhere else.
Nintendo doesn't own GameFreak. There are several non-Pokemon games released on other consoles.
Serebii has a page on the structure of The Pokemon Company.
here is the new thread for this discusion
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/is-pokemon-showdown-in-danger.3737244/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/is-pokemon-showdown-in-danger.3737244/
ok, this discussion is being shut down. i was told the answer i was given was correct, the new thread was shut down, and i expect this one to follow suit.
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